I am testing a 10 min. module that contains FLASH, minimal video, and games to support the content. What is the best way to test, ie. select a group of users and follow up with a focus group? What measurement criteria is best and questions should be asked?

Excellent question! Is this a module that you built internally, or are you evaluating something from a vendor? When you say measurement criteria, do you mean regarding the quality of the course itself, or do you mean measurement of learning, such as with testing/quizzing?

Sheldon Murphy
Solid State Learning
www.sslearn.com

Hi Kelly -

Sheldon presents good questions to consider, and I'll toss a few other ideas out -

Try and get a satisfying cross-section of your general learner population; if the grand plan is to share this or a similar module with hundreds or thousands of employees, make sure you have diversity in age, cultures, web savviness, etc. Will the module be taken at all off-site from your business location? Try and test across different bandwidths and connection speeds to see how performance may be affected. Those are some nuts & bolts issues, but of course you also want to get a sense for content effectiveness; if it's a sales course, are they more confident in a sales scenario? If a safety module, do they understand protocol better? Etc. - asking those questions (we survey on a 5 point "least-to-most" scale), and whatever else your content suggests, as specifically as you feel is useful, should give you a good sense of things.

If you have a willing and interested population ready to test it, then try and test with something like 10% of your total intended learning core. If you're concerned about getting a quality test set, you might give away an iPod or something in a drawing from those that agree to help.

Just a few thoughts - hope they contribute. Best of luck -

Chris